Powering a community-scale DC grid to achieve zero emissions in remote areas

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Canada is part of a global movement that has committed to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. One way to reduce emissions is to produce electricity using Renewable Energy Sources (RES) like solar, rather than fossil fuels. This is particularly relevant to communities in remote and developing areas, which rely on diesel to provide electricity and often have no access to the main grid due to the prohibitive costs of building transmission lines in remote locations. In Manitoba, 70% of the Indigenous population lives in the Northern part of the province, far from the main cities, and this has led to inequity in terms of energy access. An off-grid power system (PS) based on distributed RES, e.g. solar, and Energy Storage System (ESS) is an alternative solution to provide electric power for houses. However, the ESS capacity of a single house is limited which creates issues of energy availability. This limitation can be overcome by developing community-scale Microgrid (MG) infrastructures. To achieve this, houses could be inter-connected and connected to central RES and ESS, and smart control mechanisms can be employed to regulate the efficient use and stability of power in the MG. Direct Current (DC) distribution instead of conventional Alternating Current (AC) grid network would be used to avoid unnecessary losses in power conversion and transmission. There are challenges to the design and evaluation of a DC MG. Community-scale MGs must be isolated from house-scale Sub-MGs to avoid safety and noise issues. Power Electronics (PE) Transformers represent a solution for interfacing the DC grids. Similarly, efficient solar and ESS converters have to be designed that are compatible with a DC grid. Energy coordination within the community-scale DC MG requires advanced machine learning algorithms to maintain and predict energy availability within the grid. It is well-known that there is a large technology gap that lies between simulation and practical systems, as there are many non-ideal components in power apparatuses. A PE based Power-Hardware-In-the-Loop (PHIL) platform can help to bridge the technical gap by providing a semi-physical system for evaluation of novel DC MG designs in a lab. A 10kW MG PHIL system will be constructed to run in a lab. The MG prototype will simulate a small-scale community PS which integrates RES, ESS and Sub-MGs in houses with a demonstration of the control capability of newly designed controllers. This innovative, small, efficient, practical and fully controllable MG demonstrator will support the transfer of these technologies to industry. The proposed program will train 12 HQP (4 PhD, 3 MSc and 5 BSc), who will gain practical experience with PE and PS. The proposed system will facilitate technology and business development for both real time simulator manufacturers and MG providers in Canada. Furthermore, it will help Canada achieve power equity for all citizens and still achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.